Saturday 10th May 2025 – WNIHL Div2N: Leeds Roses 3 – Widnes Wild Women 3 (Match Abandoned 46m)
Jemma Brown scored the first Wild
goal at Leeds and was named MVP
(Photo by Paul Breeze)
The Widnes Wild women’s team saw their league title winning season come to a rather subdued end after their final game away to Leeds was abandoned midway through the third period due to a player injury.
The score stood at 3-3 at the time and, subject to official confirmation, that is likely to be recorded as the final result.
While it is always nice to win, the result of this game didn’t really matter too much to the Wild Women as they had already accrued enough points to secure the league championship.
Leeds, however, really needed to win to have a chance of finishing in second position in the league and clinching the remaining play off place.
Player injuries and match abandonments aside, it was a fascinating end to the season as three teams went into the final weekend level on 14 points – Leeds, Telford and Sheffield - any of whom could have finished in the runners up spot.
The game at Leeds – as the result suggests - was very close. It took until the 15th minute for the deadlock to be broken and a Jemma Brown goal fired the Wild Women into the lead.
40 seconds later it was 0-2 to Widnes after a strike from Lise Gillen and the score remained 0-2 at the first break.
Gillen found the back of the net again 4 minutes into the second period to put Widnes 0-3 up but then Leeds began to fight back.
Lisa Gillen scored twice for
the Wild Women
(Photo by Flyfifer Photography)
They pulled a goal back just 70 seconds later and then further narrowed the deficit at the midway point of the game. The score stood at a tantalisingly close 2-3 at the second interval and Leeds went on to draw level on 44 minutes.
Unfortunately, we will never know what might have happened next as the game was called to a halt shortly after that.
Draws are fairly rare in ice hockey – especially in recent seasons since many leagues have adopted overtime and penalties shots to decide tied matches.
However, assuming that Saturday’s game remains a draw, it will mean that the Wild Women have had an incredible FIVE draws from their 16 games this season.
They drew 2-2 away at Telford in the league, drew 4-4 both home and away against Kingston Diamonds and then saw their home cup game against Telford also end in a 5-5 draw, another game that was stopped early due to a player injury.
The draw away at Leeds means that Widnes finish top of the Division 2 North table with 18 points from their 12 league games.
With Leeds only drawing on Saturday, this meant they finished the league campaign on 15 points. Sheffield beat Whitley Bay Beacons 7-2, also on Saturday, and thus finished their season on 16 points putting them above Leeds and in the driving seat for the runners up spot – at least overnight.
The matter was eventually settled on Sunday when Telford Wrekin Raiders hammered Kingston Diamonds 17-0 to match the Shadows on points but secure second place with a superior goal difference of +41 to +26.
As things turned out, the point that Leeds dropped in the abandoned drawn game wouldn’t have been enough to send them to the playoffs anyway as Telford would still have come out on top of the chasing pack due to the way that the league separate teams that have finished level in the table.
The Wild Women are next in action at the WNIHL play offs, which take place in Sheffield over the Bank Holiday weekend of 24th to 26th May, where they will be joined in the north v south semi finals by Telford, Cambridge and Streatham.
